Joint interpretation of seismic refraction tomography and electrical resistivity tomography by cluster analysis to detect buried cavities

Abstract

In the last few years, the geophysical methods of seismic refraction tomography (SRT) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) are among themost used geophysical techniques for the reconstruction of subsoil geometries, for the investigation of underground cavities and also for the archaeological prospecting. However, the main disadvantage of each geophysical method is the difficulty of final interpretation of the data. In order to eliminate artifacts and generally improve the reliability and accuracy of geophysical interpretation, it is useful to perform a joint approach of different geophysical methods, also introducing the a priori information. In this work, it is shown the integrated study of seismic refraction tomography and electrical resistivity tomography techniques, the two geophysical methods are tested on both synthetic and real data and the integration of data is useful in detecting buried cavities and also evaluate their geometric characteristics. Likelihood parameters has been defined and tested, in order to help recognizing voids from other lithological structures. Finally, a statistical approach based on cluster analysis of the P-wave velocity, the density of the seismic rays and the electrical resistivity of the synthetic and experimental models was used. Multi-space cluster distribution maps were built, allowing to better define and interpret the anomalies of the subsoil.